At HEDNA Conference: Hotels Urged to Develop, Implement Security Plans

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. October 14, 2008

FALLS CHURCH, VA, December 20, 2005. Hoteliers at the December HEDNA Conference in San Francisco were encouraged to develop threat assessment programs, educate consumers about potential risks, offer value added services to guests, and support industry data initiatives around hotel security practices. Closing Keynote Speaker Marty Pfinsgraff, chief operating officer, iJET Intelligent Risk Systems, said that travel and tourism remain hot terrorist targets due to their "optimal" impact on consumer psychology affecting society, economy, and business. He also projected that, according to data through 2005, the decade 2000-2009 would see double the terrorist attacks on hotels than the 1990s. Pfinsgraff said that while the risks of a terrorist incident are quite low, hotels could significantly lower their risk by implementing sensible security programs.

The Conference also welcomed back Forrester Research vice president Henry Harteveldt, who shared data from studies that proved content is the primary driver of distribution channel usage. He also showed that most travelers are equally satisfied by any two points of sales that they use to research and purchase travel. Therefore, suppliers must be more strategic in making sure that content reflects and takes advantage of the channel in which it appears.

In addition to Pfinsgraff and Hartveldt, the group of over 335 attendees heard from an all-star roster of presenters and panelists from: Amadeus Global Travel Distribution; Boeing Travel Management Company; Cendant Travel Distribution Services; Deloitte; Expedia/Hotels.com; Galileo International; Groople; Hospitality Technology Consulting; Hotel Information Systems; IAC Corporation; Marriott International; OnVantage; Opodo; Travelocity; Pegasus Solutions, Inc,; Priceline.com; Sabre Travel Network; Solutionz Group International; StarCite; Starwood Hotels and Resorts; SynXis; TravelCLICK; WORLDHOTELS; and Worldspan. Three of the sessions were moderated by Dr. Lalia Rach, director of the Tisch Center for Hospitality at NYU; her approach was effective as she asked direct and tough questions to her panelists.

"The HEDNA Conference provides a forum for attendees to receive actionable information designed to help their companies attain and sustain profitability," said HEDNA president Jimmy Suh. "This past Conference in San Francisco was no exception. We believe that by having a conference developed by knowledgeable travel industry executives on the Board of HEDNA, we can fully address the topics that are critical and timely to our membership."

In the general session panels, speakers addressed the evolution of the online agency, maximizing corporate bookings, applying dynamic packaging when increasing leisure sales to move inventory, GDS updates and developments, the CRS and its role in serving suppliers, and the how the distribution challenges in the "groups" and "meetings" market is finally being tackled. TravelCLICK provided statistical updates on how each channel is performing in different regions of the world and explained the tools that track where an electronic booking originates and which front-end application is used.

The HEDNA Committees met and worked for four hours at the conference. The Standards Committee organized a dedicated working group to address the issues surrounding credit card verification requirements; a new influx of members joined the working group on digital assets. The Distribution Management Committee saw progress in its three subcommittees. The Benchmarking group strategized on ways to develop a methodology of counting the business/reservations for comparative analysis across e-channels. The subcommittee working on Group continued its efforts to provide ongoing, educational resources for all aspects of the HEDNA membership to address and enable the standardization and automation of the group booking process. Meanwhile, the Tour subcommittee developed ways to bring the Tour segment of the industry into the world of increased distribution automation.

Sponsors of the Conference included providers of the hottest products and services in the industry: Hotwire, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, Open World, Opodo, Ltd., Access America; AltiusPAR, Hotel Booking Solutions, Inc., Leonardo, Smart Destinations, SynXis, IATA, Electrobug Technologies, Multimap.com, Sabre Travel Network, and TravelCLICK.

The next HEDNA Conference will be held 21-23 May 2006 in Frankfurt, Germany at the Steigenberger Frankfurter Hof Hotel. For more information, visit http://www.hedna.org/2006_may_mtg.cfm or email [email protected].

About HEDNA

The Hotel Electronic Distribution Network Association (HEDNA) is a not-for-profit trade association whose worldwide membership includes executives and managers from over 200 of the most influential companies in the hotel distribution industry. Founded in 1991, all of HEDNA's activities are intended to stimulate the booking of hotel rooms through the use of GDS, the Internet and other electronic means. HEDNA brings all segments of the hotel industry together to evolve systems and services into electronic distribution that is easy and efficient. Additional information on HEDNA is available by calling +1 703 970-2070 or by visiting www.hedna.org.